Shootings expose divisions on gun issue in faith communities

 Are you pro-life if you are pro-guns?

By DEEPA BHARATH and HOLLY MEYER

1 of 8

Marius Annandale kneels while praying during a Second Amendment gun rights rally at the Utah State Capitol Saturday, March 27, 2021, in Salt Lake City. After a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022, several pastors and rabbis around the country have challenged their conservative counterparts with this question: Are you pro-life if you are pro-guns? (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

After a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, several pastors around the country challenged their conservative counterparts with this question: Are you pro-life if you are pro-gun?

One of those faith leaders is the Rev. Steven Marsh, senior pastor of Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California. That’s where a gunman, who officials say was fueled by hate against Taiwan, opened fire on May 15 at a luncheon organized by members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, killing one and injuring five others.

“I’ve heard people tell me I’m not Christian because I’m pro-choice,” Marsh said. “I ask those people: How can you be pro-life and not support getting rid of assault rifles? You can’t pick and choose where you want to be pro-life.”

Marsh’s emotional statement is a vignette in the larger narrative of a nation divided on how – or if – guns should be regulated. The faith community is not monolithic on this issue.

People of faith who are tired of years of failed gun control efforts and grieving the latest mass shooting victims are pointing out what they say is hypocrisy – conservative Christians pushing to abolish abortion and grant unfettered access to guns. Those who disagree contend the real problem is sin and soft targets. It’s not guns, but the “evil” in people and abortions that kill, they say.

These entrenched, partisan divisions in the U.S. on abortion and gun rights are stark after high-profile massacres in New York, California, Texas and elsewhere as the country awaits a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could overturn the constitutional right to abortion.

According to 2017 Pew Research Center data analyzed for Christianity Today, 41% of white evangelicals own a gun compared to 30% of Americans overall – the highest share of any religious group. The survey also shows 74% of all gun owners in the U.S. agree that their right to gun ownership is essential to their sense of freedom. Most states also allow firearms in places of worship.

Christian author and activist Shane Claiborne disputes the notion that the U.S. has a sin problem, but not a gun problem; he says it has both. Claiborne recently went to Uvalde to support victims, and to Houston to pray and protest at the National Rifle Association’s convention held days after the massacre.

He passed out tracts asserting “We can’t be pro-life and ignore gun violence” and asking “Will we choose the gun or the cross?” Claiborne said he was among those asked to leave the NRA’s Sunday prayer breakfast after disrupting the program to call for prayer for the Uvalde victims.

Claiborne wants to see laws change, including policies that would raise the age of gun ownership, limit magazine capacity, ban assault-style weapons and mandate training. He said laws can’t make people love each other, but they can make it more difficult to take a life.

“We want to make it harder for folks to kill other people, and we’re making it really easy right now,” Claiborne said.

Conservative pastors have said mass shootings and other social harms are the result of an overall degradation in moral values and disregard for human life.

Pastor Tim Lee, an evangelist and a former U.S. Marine who lost both legs during the Vietnam War, was one of the featured speakers at the NRA prayer breakfast that Claiborne and others were asked to leave.

After the Uvalde shooting, Lee posted on his Facebook page: “This is so heartbreaking. I have said it so many times – When kids hear adults say that it’s OK to kill babies (abortion) then all respect for human lives is gone.”

The gun debate is deeply personal for the Rev. Chineta Goodjoin. Her best friend, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, was one of nine people shot and killed by Dylann Roof in June 2015 as they sat in prayer at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Goodjoin, who leads New Hope Presbyterian Church in Anaheim, California, said people of faith must rise up in “righteous anger” to demand common-sense gun regulation. When massacres occur in community spaces like churches, schools and supermarkets, it tests an entire community’s resiliency, she said.

“How can you teach in schools when people are traumatized by gun violence?” she said. “When a church is no longer a safe space, do I work to enhance security or enhance people’s faith? The impact is like an epidemic that touches every fiber of our being.”

But others, like the Rev. Russ Tenhoff, say it is simply not possible to “legislate safety.”

“There are plenty of laws, but people who are lawless don’t obey them,” said Tenhoff, lead pastor of Mountainside Community Fellowship in Kingwood, West Virginia. “Murders are going to happen even without firearms. We’re never going to be able to prevent gun violence.”

As a firearms safety officer who trains adults and children, Tenhoff says the solution is to “harden the schools,” which have become soft targets.

“We need to put one-way locks on schools, have metal detectors and an armed officer in every school,” he said.

For a Catholic pastor in Newtown, Connecticut, who a decade ago experienced the grief that now envelops Uvalde, the lack of political will to enact gun legislation is unfathomable.

Monsignor Robert Weiss, who leads the St. Rose of Lima parish, presided over the funeral of eight victims who were murdered in Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. He held an evening Mass in his church the day after the Texas shooting.

“I guess I was a fool to think Sandy Hook was going to change the world,” he said in a video recording of the service.

Weiss also questioned the consequences of individualism in America.

“Is that what our forefathers intended for us?” he asked. “To live in a country where unborn babies are aborted, where children are murdered in school where they should be safe, where you can’t even go to a grocery store or to a church or to a library and feel like you’ll be OK?”

Pastor Mike McBride, who leads The Way Christian Center in Berkeley, California, said those on different sides of the gun issue must find common concerns to unite around and work on solutions together.

McBride says many who are pro-gun are also worried about accidental gun deaths, intimate partner violence and suicides.

“Those shared concerns can be addressed with targeted strategies that don’t keep us bogged down in the Second Amendment fight,” he said.

McBride suggests having listening campaigns across church groups and neighborhoods — a “peace infrastructure” to combat violence.

Marsh, the Laguna Woods pastor, says the shooting in his church and other recent massacres have inspired him to have “more serious conversations about this issue” in his community. He would like to see diverse faith communities organize marches in local seats of government to push legislators to act.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “We need to stop using Christianity as a veneer to deny reality.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

RIP

Gerber baby Ann Turner Cook dies at 95
By Adam Schrader



A charcoal sketch of Ann Turner Cook as an infant, drawn by Dorothy Hope Smith in 1928, was chosen during a contest by the Gerber Products Company as the official logo for its new line of baby food. Photo courtesy Gerber/Instagram

June 4 (UPI) -- Ann Turner Cook, the woman whose face has adorned billions of Gerber baby food products, has died. She was 95.

A charcoal sketch of Cook as an infant, drawn by Dorothy Hope Smith in 1928, was chosen during a contest by the Gerber Products Company as the official logo for its new line of baby food.

The drawing was trademarked in the 1930s and has been reproduced ever since on billions of baby food jars, becoming an internationally recognized logo, even as the identity of the baby remained a mystery for decades.

Cook's death was announced by Gerber in a statement to Instagram and her family confirmed to The New York Times that she died in her home in St. Petersburg, Fla., early on Friday.

Ann Turner Cook, the woman whose face has adorned billions of Gerber baby food products, has died. She was 95. Photo courtesy Gerber/Instagram

"Gerber is deeply saddened by the passing of Ann Turner Cook, the original Gerber baby, whose face was sketched to become the iconic Gerber logo more than 90 years ago," the company said in its statement.

"Many years before becoming an extraordinary mother, teacher and writer, her smile and expressive curiosity captured hearts everywhere and will continue to live on as a symbol for all babies. We extend our deepest sympathies to Ann's family and to anyone who had the pleasure of knowing her."

Smith made her drawing of Cook based on a photograph of her taken when she was about four months old, though she was about two years old when the sketch was made.

The artist had considered the sketch unfinished but submitted it with the promise she would make it more elaborate if she won the competition but it was chosen without changes. The company, now a subsidiary of Nestle, preferred the simple sketch to more elaborate drawings and paintings that had been submitted.

Ann Turner Cook, original Gerber baby


 In this photo provided by Gerber, Ann Turner Cook, whose baby face launched the iconic Gerber logo, arrives at NBC's Today Show to announce the winner of the 2012 Gerber Generation Photo Search on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012 in New York City. Ann Turner Cook, whose cherubic baby face was known the world over as the original Gerber baby, has died. She was 95. Gerber announced Cook's passing in an Instagram post on Friday, June 3, 2022.  (Amy Sussman/Gerber via AP, File)

Smith was originally paid about $300 for the rights to her drawing and Gerber paid Cook a one-time cash settlement of $5,000 in 1951 which helped her place a down payment on her first home.

Gerber, Smith and Cook remained tight-lipped about her identity as the so-called "Gerber Baby" for decades as questions grew about the sex and identity of the model.

Cook only revealed herself as the model in the late 1970s when Gerber celebrated the 50th anniversary of the drawing.

In the decades before the reveal, speculation had grown that the model could be movie stars Humphrey Bogart and Elizabeth Taylor to Senator Bob Dole.

Some of that speculation was fueled by the fact that Maud Humphrey, a commercial illustrator, used her son as a model for much of her work including ads for another baby food brand.

In her adult life, Cook earned a bachelor's degree in English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and a master's from the University of South Florida before she went on to become a mystery novelist and English teacher.

Her husband James Cook, a criminologist with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in Tampa, died in 2004, The New York Times reported.

She is survived by their three daughters and a son, as well as eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Russia plans to restart German telescope without permission

Russian space agency Roscosmos says it will restart a telescope shut down by Germany over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. But a noted expert has warned that this might be dangerous to the instrument.



The eROSITA telescope works together with a Russian one to send data from space

Russia will try to unilaterally restart a German satellite telescope that was put into sleep mode by Germany's Max Planck Institute in protest at Moscow's war in Ukraine, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos said in remarks broadcast on Saturday.

The X-ray telescope, named eROSITA, works in tandem with a Russian instrument, the ART-XC, to scan distant galaxies in what was a joint German-Russian mission until Germany put its cooperation on ice over Russia's invasion.
What did Roskosmos' head say?

"I gave instructions to start work on restoring the operation of the German telescope in the Spektr-RG system so it works together with the Russian telescope," Roskosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said in a televised interview.

"Despite Germany's demand to shut down one of the two telescopes at Spektr-RG, Russian specialists insist on continuing its work. Roscosmos will make relevant decisions in the near future," Rogozin said.

"They — the people that made the decision to shut down the telescope — don't have a moral right to halt this research for humankind just because their pro-fascist views are close to our enemies," added Rogozin, who is a Putin loyalist and a vocal supporter of Moscow's military action.

The telescope was launched into space from the Baikonur launch site in July 2019

Expert's warning

However, the scientific director of the Spekr-RG project said that attempts to restart the telescope without German cooperation could be detrimental to the device itself.

The recommissioning could take place only with Germany's consent; otherwise, the telescope would be in danger of breaking down, said Russian astrophysicist Rashid Sunyaev.

The Russian Interfax news agency also cited him as saying that "unilateral action in this situation only adds more mistrust between people."

What is eROSITA?

The eROSITA telescope was launched by Roscosmos on July 13, 2019, from the Russian launch site Baikonur in Kazakhstan. It began collecting data in October 2019.

The Spektr-RG mission on which it is deployed along with the Russian telescope aims, among other things, to detect black holes.

Until eROSITA was put into sleep mode on February 26, two days after Russia started its invasion, Russian and German researchers had been able to jointly evaluate the data sent by the two devices.

At the time it was shut down, eROSITA had completed four of its planned eight full-sky surveys. Data from the first four are still being evaluated by scientists.

tj/dj (dpa, Interfax)

Nigeria's political system favors old wealthy men

Despite young people making up the majority of Nigeria's voters, the country's politicians are mostly old, wealthy and male. Such a system makes it harder for young people to enter politics.

Nigeria goes to the polls in February and March 2023 for general and state elections

Campaigning is in full gear in Nigeria as the the June 9 deadline nears for Nigeria's political parties to pick their presidential candidates for the 2023 polls.

The main opposition party, the People's Democratic Party, or PDP, has already nominated a 75-year-old as its presidential candidate. 

Business tycoon Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, has had five previous goes at winning the presidential ticket. Given his advanced age, many believe this could be his last shot. 

Abubakar is unlikely to be the only politician over 70 on the ballot paper.

Bola Tinubu, a former Lagos governor who entered politics some 30 years ago, is hoping that the ruling All Progressives Congress, or APC, will select him in their primaries. 

Aged 70, Tinubu is nearly a decade younger than Nigeria's current president Muhammadu Buhari. 

The 79-year-old incumbent, who isn't eligible to run in 2023 due to presidential term limits, is also deeply entrenched in the nation's politics, having run for president five times since 2003.

Bola Tinubu, who hopes to run for president, is is part of the ruling elite

Young voters, old politicians

Slightly over half of Nigeria's84 million registered voters in the 2019 election were between 18 and 35.

But young citizens, many of whom who face endemic unemployment and entrenched poverty, often feel that the political old guard are out of touch with their needs. 

This is perhaps one of the reasons why just over a third of registered voters cast a ballot in 2019, a turnout that is low by global — and West African — standards.

But the political system is proving hard for young people to break into and many feel they are being sidelined in the decision-making processes.

Big barriers to enter politics

Ngbejume Ugochukwu, who lives in Benin City in the country's south, dreamed of entering politics. 

But 32-year-old Ugochukwu didn't have a powerful patron, or "godfather" to help pull the strings. 

"To become a politician in Nigeria, you have to first of all be extremely loyal to somebody who is up there already ... and then pay years of service of being loyal to that person," the scientist and youth mentor told DW in an interview. 

The country's politics also require deep pockets. 

Simply registering as a 2023 presidential aspirant with the main two political parties, the APC and the PDP, required nomination form payments of 100 million naira ($242,000 or €225,000) and 40 million naira respectively.

Being a wealthy candidate is also important "insofar as nominations often have to be bought by bribing party delegates," finds a 2021 analysis by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a German foundation, of how Nigeria's ruling elite cling to power.

Atiku Abubakar supporters hold up a banner during the People's Democratic Party primaries

For the 2023 PDP party nominations, some delegates were reportedly paid as much as $50,000 for their vote, sources who attended the party primaries held last weekend, told DW. 

In a country where the minimum wage is $68 per month, that puts politics out of reach of most Nigerians, particularly women, and is leading to growing resentment among the young. 

"The youths don't have millions to throw around like our fathers [the older, wealthy politicians] are doing; buying [a nomination] form for 100 million naira and paying delegates millions of naira," said Freedom Chukwumezie, a law firm secretary in Delta State. 

"The youths can't afford it," he said. 

Rise of 'moneytocracy'

Political analyst Solomon Opara says his country's dependence on "money politics" means most young people don't bother trying to get into politics in the first place. 

"No young man would want to invest such [sums] into a venture that he is not sure of because it has become a thing of the highest bidder gets it," said Opara. 

Nigeria has been called a 'moneytocracy', a country ruled by corruption and bribery

For those few that do venture into politics, the vast sums of money required make it difficult, if not impossible, for youths to clinch leadership positions with established parties, he said. 

Kinsman Alabribe from Owerri in Imo state says young people are completely disillusioned about the whole process. 

"An average youth believes that no matter how much work you do, they [the political elite] must manipulate it to their own favor to make sure that they win," he said. 

Too immature?

But there are those who believe that young people are shut out of politics because they are too immature and inexperienced to qualify. 

The idea that older people have more experience simply because of their seniority is deeply rooted in the West African nation's culture. 

"Among the youths currently in the limelight in Nigeria today, which one of them would you seriously think could be handed over the position of the senate president?" grassroots activist Geoffrey Noriode, from Warri in Delta State, asked DW in an interview.

Noriode says the politics of student leaders show that youths aren't ready, warning that because of their inexperience, they could be used as "pawns" by more experienced power brokers.

Mistrust of young people and inexperience is ingrained in many parts of Nigerian society

Way forward 

In 2018, constitutional reforms lowered the minimum age for a presidential candidacy from 40 to 35, while those who are at least 25 years old can run for a seat in the House of Representatives. 

But the average age in the House of Representatives was 55.7 when members of parliament were sworn in after the 2019 elections, according to the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung report. 

Chido Onumah, a rights activist and coordinator of the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy, an NGO based in Abuja, believes that the electoral commission should set certain guidelines to get more representation for young people. 

As well as this, the government and, in particular, its electoral commission need to find a way to reduce the importance of money in Nigerian politics.

"Nigeria is a democratic country but in terms of the building blocks of democracy, we are very lacking," he told DW.

Edited by: Kate Hairsine

Can a 'green Islam' save Indonesia from climate collapse?

Calls for an environmentally conscious form of Islam are growing in Indonesia, as climate change poses enormous ecological challenges for the country. Experts say it could change society's approach to climate efforts.



Indonesia is struggling with a myriad of environmental troubles

Following the publication of an alarming report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Indonesia is once again at the center of the global climate debate.

As the world's largest exporter of coal and palm oil, the country has a major impact on the global climate crisis. Yet the island state itself is increasingly affected by extreme weather events. In 2019, a severe drought led to widespread forest fires. In 2020, the country experienced massive flooding due to the heaviest rainfall in decades.

With a population of over 270 million, Indonesia faces enormous social and environmental challenges, and some experts see religion as a ray of hope. As the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, calls for an environmentally conscious Islam are growing in Indonesia.

"There is no doubt that the new Islamic environmental awareness is strengthening the entire ecological movement in Indonesia," Fachruddin Mangunjaya, chairman of the Center for Islamic Studies at the National University in Jakarta, told DW.

Watch video 02:19 Indonesia: Coal power comes at a high cost   

A country in an environmental dilemma

Indonesia, with its more than 17,000 islands, is in a quandary. In addition to waste disposal, the two major climate sins of the country — coal-fired power and deforestation — repeatedly make the country's headlines.

Indonesia is not only the world's export champion for thermal coal, but also the largest producer of palm oil, which leads to the deforestation of large areas of forest every year.

Coal and palm oil form the backbone of the Indonesian economy, which cannot grow without reliable energy and the export of palm oil.

On the other hand, this economic model harms the very people it is supposed to serve: Indonesians. Greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and deforestation are having a significant impact on the health and livelihoods of the rural population.

As a result of climate change, many of Indonesia's remote and poor provinces suffer regular droughts, exacerbating poverty in the country.

Watch video 01:37 Appetite for Indonesian coal growing

Green Islam creates hope

Islam, to which almost 87% of the population in Indonesia feels affiliated, could provide a way out of the dilemma.

"The protection of nature and the environment is one of the commandments of Islam. Therefore, the use of clean energy is also ethically and morally important for Muslims," Indonesian anthropologist Ibnu Fikri told DW.

Together with his colleague Freek Colombijn from the Free University in Amsterdam, he has been researching the topic of "Green Islam" in Indonesia – an interaction between humans and the environment inspired by Islamic ideas and teachings.

Green Islam is also receiving more attention in politics. President Joko Widodo's government recently engaged with Islamic leaders and communities to set a goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2060.

Holding onto that principle, last year, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry signed a partnership agreement with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country's largest Muslim organization, to improve environmental management and sustainable forestry.  

Some surveys indicate that many Indonesians place the highest trust in information from religious clerics

'Translate awareness into concrete action'

According to Fachruddin, however, that is not enough. The urgency for increased climate awareness has not yet reached the majority of the country's rural population and clerics.

A 2020 survey by the Katadata Insight Center shows that Indonesian citizens place the highest trust in information from religious clerics.

As a result, Fachruddin's institute in Jakarta is working specifically on building bridges between leaders in Muslim society and environmental scientists.

"It is important that Islamic clerics not only understand the religious teachings, but also their significance for climate protections, so they can translate their awareness into concrete action," Fachruddin said.

So far, he has trained about 1,000 Islamic clerics who practice environmental protection and provide education in various villages across the country — and the number is growing.

Boarding schools as the nucleus of climate activism

Young people in particular need to be reached and made aware of environmental protection.

"We need to think more about our future so that our students can find answers to pressing environmental issues early on and get involved in their own communities," Khatibul Umam, who runs an Islamic boarding school (Pesantren) on the island of Madura, told DW.

Islamic boarding schools are an important part of Indonesia's education system. Umam's boarding school alone has 11,000 students.

The school has made the combination of Islam and environmental protection one of its core tasks by supporting several environmental protection projects such as reforestation, sustainable agriculture and recycling, all of which have regional roots and are inspired by Islam.


President Joko Widodo has called on Islamic leaders to help reach zero emisions by 2060
The limits of 'green Islam'

Although the direction is clear, Umam also knows that Islamic environmental activism in Indonesia is still at the beginning. "The main challenge we face, not only in our schools but in society in general, is to try to make people understand why these projects are significant, not only to us, but to all levels of society and the future generations," said Umam.

Finally, as anthropologist Ibnu Fikri admits, there is no one Islam in Indonesia. "Due to compulsory religion in Indonesia, there is a huge diversity of practitioners of Islam. For some, it's part of their daily routine. Others feel they belong less and are Muslim because they have to choose a religion."

Watch video 01:24 Indonesian environmentalists doubt sustainability of capital city relocation

Pluralism creates opportunities

Therefore, it is not only Islam and environmental protection that need to be reconciled in the long-term, but also different social groups.

Many experts say that a comprehensive, whole-of-society approach is needed. Fachruddin sees Indonesia's pluralism as a great opportunity. "We learn a lot from traditions from before Islam. Because of our democratic situation in Indonesia, we respect not only nature and the environment, but all people and their ideas."

Ibnu Fikri also gained this impression in his fieldwork in Indonesian communities. He describes it as a "cultural environmental awareness," an interplay of religion, traditions and local practices that encourages people to protect the environment.

Even if there is a long way to go, Islam can still provide a strong source of inspiration for many.

Edited by: Leah Carter

How we can overcome the growing plastic crisis

The planet's plastic emergency is set to worsen dramatically. An OECD report reveals ways to significantly reduce pollution by 2060.


Unless we cut down on producing plastic and recycle and reuse more, the planet will drown in the petrochemical product

Plastic has long had the planet in its grip. All too often it is found piled up on beaches and floating as "plastic islands" in the ocean. But it also clogs the stomachs of birds and other animals, and has even made it into the human bloodstream.

To date, just 9% of the world's plastic has been recycled. Some 12% has been burned, and the rest has ended up on landfills or in nature.

But as dire as the situation sounds, there is light at the end of the plastic tunnel, writes intergovernmental economic organization, the OECD, in its new Global Plastic Outlook report. If countries around the world make a concerted effort.

Microplastics can enter the human body through food and water

Dim plastic prospects with 'business as usual' scenario

On our current course, however, plastic use will triple by 2060, and because the material is not biodegradable, so will the resulting trash. Microplastic pollution will increase significantly in every country too.

Rivers such as the Ganges in India and Ciliwung in Indonesia are already brimming with plastic trash. Unless we change our habits, the amount that ends up in nature will double and cause even greater harm to plants, animals and ecosystems, according to the report published today.

With 99% of plastics made from fossil fuels, the already considerable emissions created during the lifecycle of plastics will also more than double by 2060.

"It's clear that 'business as usual' in the way we use, produce and manage plastic is not possible anymore," Peter Börkey, OECD environmental policy expert and report co-author, told DW.

Rivers in many countries are already choking with plastic waste

The good news: Countries can work together to solve the problem

But the future is not set in stone.

Plastic use could fall a fifth by 2060 if the OECD's 38 member states, particularly those with high per-capita incomes like Germany, the USA and Japan, implemented far-reaching reforms. Such a move would also significantly reduce waste.

If non-OECD countries joined in, plastic waste could be cut by a third, even allowing for global economic growth. That means barely any plastic would end up in the environment, according to the report's authors.

But to reach those goals, nearly 60% of plastic waste must be recycled globally. The market share of recycled material will have to increase from the current 6% to 41%, while waste management systems need to be significantly improved.

OECD member states are the biggest global plastic consumers today. But by 2060, around half of plastic consumption will be in countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. These countries already see a high incidence of plastic ending up in nature.

"The most effective way to reduce plastic in the environment is, first and foremost, helping developing countries to improve their waste management systems," said Börkey. "And this is where OECD countries can help."

Watch video 08:07 Recycling plastics – is there a better way?

A tax on new plastic

The scenarios and calculations the authors suggest are ambitious and include introducing a tax of $1000 (€931) per ton of newly manufactured plastic. The idea is to push businesses to seek out alternative materials.

"That will have a significant impact on demand for plastic," said Börkey. "We have to create situations where alternatives to single-use plastics become viable."

Despite its problems, plastic is still an enormously useful material. It's used in wind turbines and electric cars. According to Börkey, we don't have to replace plastic where there are no good alternatives or where its use is sustainable.

The aim is to reduce the kinds of plastic that usually end up in the environment.

"That is typically packaging. It is about one third of the plastic that we use," he said.

A woman weaving personal protective equipment from upcycled plastic

Fixed recycling quotas would help to reduce waste and production of virgin plastic. So too would introducing legislation to make manufacturers produce packaging, clothing, and vehicles in a more sustainable way and ensure electronic goods are easier to repair, prolonging their life span.

These are all ideas connected to the circular economy, which aims to create a system that avoids waste as much as possible and reuses resources in new products.
Small first steps to tackle to plastic crisis

In March 2022, 200 countries agreed for the first time to set mandatory rules and instruments for plastic production, consumption, and disposal by 2024.

Conservation organization WWF called the move historic. However, states still have to hammer out the details. The extent to which any rules would be binding has also yet to be determined.

In 2021, the European Union banned a number of single-use plastic items, including disposable cutlery and dishes, to-go cups, Styrofoam containers, and straws.

Regulating plastic consumption worldwide, as proposed by the OECD authors, would cost less than 1% of global GDP by 2060.

This article was originally published in German.

WASTE PICKERS OF DAKAR
On the hunt for plastic and metals
About 2,000 waste pickers work at the Mbeubeuss landfill outside the Senegalese capital, Dakar. With an iron hook, they scour the waste for recyclable plastic, or burn the trash to find valuable metals.
1234567

US: Mexico-based megachurch leader pleads guilty to child sex abuse

Nasson Joaquin Garcia, the head of the evangelical church La Luz del Mundo, pleaded guilty to three charges stemming from the abuse of three underage victims.



La Luz del Mundo has close to 5 million followers worldwide

The leader of a Mexico-based evangelical megachurch has admitted to sexually abusing three girls, just days before he was to be tried on multiple charges including child rape, state prosecutors in the US state of California said on Friday.

Nasson Joaquin Garcia, the head and self-styled apostle of the La Luz del Mundo (Light of the World) church, headquartered in the western city of Guadalajara, entered a guilty plea at the Los Angeles Superior Court three days before he was scheduled to go on trial.

Garcia pleaded guilty to two counts of forcible oral copulation involving minors and one count of a lewd act upon a child who was 15.

"Garcia used his power to take advantage of children," Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. "He relied on those around him to groom congregants for the purposes of sexual assault. Today's conviction can never undo the harm, but it will help protect future generations."

The 53-year-old will be sentenced next Wednesday and could face up to 16 years and eight months in prison, prosecutors said. He remains in jail on a $90 million (€84 million) bail.

Watch video03:22 Juan Carlos Cruz, sexual abuse survivor, in an interview with DW

Long cycle of abuse

The guilty plea comes at the end of a long investigation into Garcia, the leader of the fundamentalist Christian church founded by his grandfather in 1926, which now boasts 5 million followers globally.

The church advocates a very conservative lifestyle, with male members often wearing suits and women in non-revealing dresses and hair veils.

Garcia took over as the "apostle" after his father, Samuel Joaquin Flores, died in 2014. Flores was also the subject of child sex abuse allegations in 1997, but no criminal charges were filed.

One of Garcia’s co-defendants, Alondra Ocampo, pleaded guilty to three felony counts of contact with a minor for purposes of committing a sexual offense and one count of forcible sexual penetration in 2020.

She said she had been sexually abused by Flores.

'Grooming' help

In addition to Garcia and Ocampo, co-defendant Susana Medina Oaxaca also pleaded guilty to a charge of assault likely to cause great bodily harm on Friday.

Attorney Pat Carey said 27-year-old Oaxaca had faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted at trial and the guilty plea was in her best interests. "It was also a relief to put a 3-year process behind her rather than endure a lengthy jury trial, 98% of which involved evidence that had nothing to do with her," he wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

Ocampo, on the other hand, was set to testify against Garcia after admitting to helping him find victims. Her attorney Fred Thiagarajah said Ocampo would have corroborated the testimony of victims and provided context for the prosecutor's case.

"She actively recruited and groomed girls for him," Thiagarajah said. "She would target girls and bring them into his inner fold. She was tasked with sexualizing these girls and facilitating their abuse."

According to the charges, Ocampo told girls that if they refused his wishes and desires, they were going against God.

A fourth individual, Azalea Rangel Melendez, has also been charged in the investigation, but remains at large, prosecutors said.

In 2020, the church defended its leader in a statement, saying the charges against him stemmed from "unsubstantiated anonymous allegations" and "blatant hearsay."

see/tj (Reuters, AP)

German police criticized over far-right Hanau killings

Police have been accused of failing to keep tabs on a racist killer during one of Germany's worst-ever far-right shootings. Police say they had to proceed cautiously.

Relatives of the Hanau shootings question police action on the day of the attacks

An exhibition in Frankfurt about one of Germany's deadliest mass shootings has raised new questions about the police operation in the city of Hanau in the state of Hesse, on February 19, 2020. Most of the evidence on display in the exhibition has never been published before, and much had not even been made available to the state parliamentary committee investigating the security forces' role.

The 43-year-old Tobias R.*carried out a mass shooting in two bars and a kiosk, where he killed nine people of color and injured five others. He later killed his mother in their home before taking his own life. Prosecutors classified the crime as racially motivated right-wing extremism, as the gunman had posted a racist manifesto on his website.

The Hesse State Interior Minister Peter Beuth insisted that the police performed "excellent" work during the Hanau operation. But the families of the Hanau victims have repeatedly alleged that they have been subjected to policing and suspicion following the attack, while potential far-right perpetrators go unnoticed by authorities until atrocities happen.

The February 19 Initiative, which represents the Hanau survivors and victims' families, commissioned Forensic Architecture to conduct its investigation and was represented at the official opening at the Frankfurter Kunstverein on Thursday night by Cetin Gültekin, brother of Gökhan Gültekin, who was shot dead in Hanau's Arena Bar.

"We want to show the public that we are doing the work that the police should be doing," Gültekin told DW, after delivering a passionate speech to the crowd outside the gallery. "And now we put all the evidence on the table, and everything is in the open, and it shows that the police failed."

Cetin Gültekin is the brother of a victim of the hanau shooting. He says 'Our trust in the police is gone.'

Delayed action

The exhibition, by Forensic Architecture, a UK group that recently opened an office in Berlin, presented its evidence in the form of minutely detailed timelines and videos — painstakingly pieced together from witness statements, police helicopter footage, and surveillance cameras. The material was redacted to ensure it is legally publishable, though Forensic Architecture has chosen to keep its sources anonymous.

Forensic Architecture's exhibition suggests the Hesse state police failed to keep the perpetrator's house under surveillance for over an hour after they knew his address and had police cars posted nearby.

Acoustic experiments carried out by Forensic Architecture also suggest that nearby police should have been able to hear the shot when Tobias R. killed his mother.

"The fact that the police should've heard the shots, that the special units should've heard the shots — that throws up new questions," said Heike Hofmann, Social Democrat politician and part of the Hesse state parliamentary committee investigating the Hanau killings. "Maybe if they'd stormed the house earlier the mother could have been saved. Or the perpetrator may have been arrested alive."

"Forensic Architecture's work has confirmed what one could have suspected," she added later in a statement. "The police forces at the crime scenes ... were overwhelmed by the situation."

In response to the new findings, Hesse state police said the decision not to storm the perpetrator's house was made to avoid more violence. In a statement, police said officers arrived at the house around 10:50 p.m., and at first sought to communicate with him. But following "intensive reconnaissance measures and several failed attempts to make contact" the house was entered at around 3:00 a.m.

Police said that they had to be wary of scenarios including "suicide by cop," an exchange of fire with the perpetrator, or potential explosive booby-traps in the house.

"A quick and therefore highly risky operation was, following assessment of the overall situation, not required," the police said. The statement made no mention of the time windows when the house was apparently left un-surveilled, but pointed out that a helicopter was deployed to sweep the area throughout the evening.

However, the footage from the police helicopter presented at the exhibition raises its own concerns. Recordings of the pilots show they had little contact with officers on the ground, were never told the perpetrators' address, and were left to aimlessly circle the area.

The Arena Bar was one of the crime scenes in the racist shootings

The exhibition, entitled Three Doors, also presents new evidence on other aspects of the attack, including the sensitive issue of the emergency exit at the Arena Bar, where three people were killed. Forensic Architecture's exhibition shows new evidence that the emergency exit of one bar was locked on the night of the attack, allegedly at the behest of the police, who routinely raided it to look for illegal drugs.

In August 2021, Hanau state prosecutors dropped their investigation into the bar owner as they could not conclusively establish whether the emergency exit was locked on the night of the attack, or whether victims could have escaped through it.

The Forensic Architecture exhibition contradicts both of those conclusions. In response to a DW request for comment, Hanau state prosecutors said they had nothing to add to their investigation, which ended last August.

Racist police chats

Thursday's opening was marked by the palpable anger still felt by the victims' families. This was directed not only at the perceived failures in the police operation and the lack of clarity over the Arena Bar's emergency exit but also at the way victims' families were treated following the killings.

The families reported not being told where the bodies of their loved ones were being kept for four days after the killings, and receiving phone calls from police warning them not to carry out acts of revenge against the perpetrator's father, who is believed to share his son's far-right views. "We were left to ourselves," Gültekin told DW. "Our trust in the police is gone."

That sense of grievance was exacerbated last June when it emerged that 13 of the special unit officers on duty during the Hanau operation were suspended for taking part in a chat group that exchanged racist and far-right messages. The Hesse state government disbanded the unit.

In 2020, the last federal government introduced a total of 89 new measures to tackle far-right violence, investing a billion euros from 2021 to 2024 in civil society and political education projects.

But the problem of alleged far-right sympathies in the Hesse security forces has been the source of continual scandals. The state intelligence agency came under scrutiny in the 2006 murder of Halit Yozgat, a 21-year-old German with Turkish roots, by the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground (NSU), when it emerged that an intelligence officer was present when the killing took place. More recently, questions have been asked about how a known neo-Nazi was not under surveillance when he murdered local governor Walter Lübckein Wolfhagen in 2019.

Following the Hanau killings, then-Hesse State Premier Volker Bouffier was quoted in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper suggesting that potential far-right sympathies said nothing about whether the police had done everything right during the operation. As that quote was flashed on a screen during the exhibition in Frankfurt on Thursday night, a groan of derision went around the room.

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

* Editor's note: DW follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and urges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases.

DW RECOMMENDS

Germany marks first-ever National Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorist Violence

The NSU, Hanau, the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market — these names evoke memories of terrorist attacks in Germany's recent past. As leaders meet to commemorate the victims, some say more needs to be done to help them.  

Germany: Mural honors victims of far-right Hanau shooting

A mural commemorating the victims of the Hanau shooting has been unveiled in Frankfurt. The memorial's unveiling comes four months after the racially motivated attack by a German right-wing extremist.  

KULTURKAMPF

Why education has become a political battlefield in America

Books, schools and libraries are on the frontlines of US culture wars. A conservative-led movement is cracking down on what is taught and read. DW looks into what is behind a wave of book bans across the country.

One of the most contentious topics in this fight is the concept of critical race theory

Robin Steenman wheels a black carton full of colorful books to her kitchen table and pulls out a handful. The pages are rifled through and earmarked with sticky tabs. The pile includes titles like Sea Horse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea, Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation and The Story of Ruby Bridges.

For Steenman, these pages are evidence of schooling gone wrong.

She is the president of Moms for Liberty, a conservative group advocating for parents' rights to have a say in their children's schooling, in Williamson County, Tennessee. Her group objects to the way some books are being taught in the district's public schools.

"Schools should not be pushing an ideology on my children," Steenman said. "Schools should effectively teach them to read and write and do math and understand science so that they can go forth and be successful in life. But this curriculum is more focused on its own message and its own agenda than it is equipping kids to do that."

Those on the other side of the argument say it's important to discuss racism in the US system

Moms for Liberty in Williamson County lodged an official complaint with the Tennessee Department of Education late last year stating that the books and teaching materials "reveal both explicit and implicit anti-American, anti-white, and anti-Mexican teaching," and that they presented "a heavily biased agenda, one that makes children hate their country, each other, and/or themselves."

Their complaint was rejected. But the case underscores a growing trend in the US where a conservative-led movement is clamping down on education and, in particular, what schools teach children. They are targeting books and learning materials across the country and challenging the way racism, gender and sexuality are addressed.

A new battleground in schools

That has put classrooms and libraries on the frontlines of America's culture wars once again.

According to the American Library Association, there were "729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals."  That's the highest number of attempted book bans since the organization started counting such challenges in 2000. Most of these books were by, or about, Black or LGBTQ+ people, the association said.

And this is all despite the fact that a poll by the American Library Association indicates the majority of Americans, no matter which political party they are from, opposed efforts to remove books from public and school libraries.

"[Banning books] is a common feature in American history and has a lot to do with the sort of larger context of the culture wars in some ways, which have always been a part of American history," said Andrew Hartman, a professor of history at Illinois State University and author of A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars.

"This debate between largely religious conservatives and largely secular liberals goes back to the 1920s in many ways, but really has been heightened ever since the 1960s and the liberation movements — civil rights, feminism, gay rights."

In 1933, the Nazis burned books they viewed as subversive or opposed to Nazism

This battle over censorship is not new, nor is it limited to the US. From Germany's National Socialists banning and burning books they deemed degenerate, to radicals in China's Cultural Revolution destroying books that didn't conform to their political ideology, reading and teaching materials have been a common target throughout history and across the globe.

However the current wave of book bans in the US appears to be more politicized than previously because it pits the US' two major political parties — the Republicans and the Democrats — against one another in what is already a profoundly polarized political landscape.

Opportunistic idealogues

"It has become largely Republicans who support the conservative, largely white, religious or evangelical parents," Hartman explained. "And often, Republican politicians are frankly opportunistic about ginning up support for themselves, for their candidacies … because these are issues that animate their base."

The current backlash against books and curricula has mushroomed into a nationwide battle. There have been rallies and protests from Virginia to California, with conservative groups taking on school boards and education officials. Last year a teacher in one Tennessee county was fired for referring to white privilege in his lessons because the state's general assembly had banned what is known as critical race theory from schools.

Divisive ideas

Critical race theory, or CRT, refers to an academic concept that focuses on how racism is systemic, baked into local policies and laws. Conservatives argue that CRT is divisive and fosters negative self-image in white children. Many educators argue that there is no CRT agenda in schools and that they are teaching the very same curricula they have done for years without anybody objecting. Meanwhile Black parents point out that racism is often embedded in the systems their children have to confront.

Yet the controversy goes well beyond critical race theory. Conservative groups oppose how schools are teaching gender and sexuality as well. In Florida, the state's governor, a member of the more conservative and right-leaning Republican party, had education officials pull and scrub mathematics textbooks of what was described as "woke content." Among other things the officials objected to, there were references to racial prejudice in the books.

A school board in Tennessee even voted to remove Maus, the Pulitzer-prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust for what was deemed "rough, objectionable language."

Prize-winning graphic novel, Maus, was banned because it had curse words

 and a depiction of a naked character

"History should be taught absolutely, warts and all, but just teach history without agenda or ideology or trying to put a child in one box or another, because history has the lessons of its own," Steenman of Moms for Liberty said. "If you read a book about US history, especially in regard to slavery and the Civil War, you know, I was taught that as a child and I drew the conclusion that this was bad. Don't ever repeat this. But I was never blamed for it [the Civil War or slavery] as a child."

No negative self-image

The co-founders of One WillCo, an organization that advocates for students of color in the same Tennessee county as Moms for Liberty, have a counter argument to that though. They argue that conservative parents' complaints are unwarranted because students are thriving with the current curriculum and also learning difficult lessons on race and gender.

"All you have to do is explain to children and they get it. We don't give our kids enough credit to handle the conversations that we have," said Revida Rahman, one of the co-founders of One WillCo, who is Black and has children in the public school system. "And unfortunately for me, I have to have difficult conversations with my children on a regular basis to let them know how they're perceived, how they can't do certain things, how you can't take your candy in the grocery store because you may be accused of stealing."

The Harry Potter books have been challenged by religious critics who say they celebrate witchcraft

One WillCo 's other co-founder, Jennifer Cortez, argues that concepts like CRT are Republican talking points that don't reflect what is actually being taught in schools. Her daughter, who is white and also in the public school system, has not developed a negative self-image and Cortez says it's important to view history through an inclusive lens.

"I understand the concern but respectfully that is a white concern," Cortez said. "I have the luxury of not having to think about my skin color here, where I live and where I've grown up, because it has always been, if anything, an advantage or a non-issue. But for many children and many families, that's not the case," she noted. "I can understand why some might think this is divisive because it feels uncomfortable. But the truth is, it's better if we can talk about it and learn how to talk about it."

Edited by Cathrin Schaer